Most storytelling model approaches consider stories formed by sequences of a particular type of event. These sequences are mostly constructed using the inherent temporal characteristic of each linked event and this limitation makes it difficult to adapt the models to other kinds of events. In order to develop a more generic model to create storytelling applications, we need to organize events using not only temporal relations, but also relations determined by the rhetorical context of those events. In this paper, we present ISRST, our proposal for a generic storytelling ontology model based on the organization of events using a subset of relations proposed by the Rhetorical Structure Theory and how narrative principles and user interest are applied to these relations to generate coherent stories. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.